PTB's Writing Challenge 2013
by FlyWolfSilver
Summary: A writing challenge I've discovered pretty late in the year after it started. Says Harry Potter but will include Naruto, Pokemon, and others that take my fancy! Here it is: a collection of weird and wacky one-shots! ChallengeFics. Rating may go up for swearing.


**Challenge Number/Title: **#1 – Rocky Horizon**  
Date Posted: **21st June 2013

**Fandom: **Harry Potter**  
Rating: **PG / K+**  
Genre: **AT**  
Content Descriptors: **Fluff, Humour**  
Character Pairing: **Ron/Hermione

I don't own Harry Potter!

* * *

Moving amounts of water required a measure of concentration that the lummoxes below her had never been bothered to master. In truth, the dark haired man had been able to form a sort of whirlpool in the glass, but the redhead made every single glass explode and doused himself in tap water every Charms lesson.

On the other hand, Hermione Granger had barely needed to breathe the incantation, "Agatollere", and there was a perfect, crystal sphere of liquid hovering above the rim of the glass. _This_ charm, however, was a tricky variation that she _knew _her two best friends would be hopeless at. One that was certainly not in the Standard Book of Spells Grade 6.

"Ventus Vundade," she murmured, and watched the lip of the wave soar and crash over a bemused looking Ronald Weasley, who disappeared beneath another surge of steel blue water. It was a few moments before he remembered to cast a Buoyancy spell, and emerged from the water aided by his swimming trunks, which now looked like balloons around his pale thighs. The jetski had escaped harm, and was coasting placidly over the water. The witch scowled at it.

It was mid-May, and two days after her highly important make-or-break lecture at the Supreme Mugwump Academic Lecture Hall on her thesis about Gardenia Rocks and their negative effect on Bezoar discoveries. And Harry and Ron had forgotten to attend.

True, she understood that, to them, jet-skiing was by far the preferable of things to do in their spare time. But it was her lecture! That she'd worked towards for three whole years! Hadn't she been there for Ron when he puked his guts out at the Leaky Cauldron and could only remember her number to call?

Anger crashed through her again and, raising her wand and angling it over a lump of rock on the high cliff she was hidden on, she raised another wave that plunged over Harry and left him spluttering.

"Hell hath no fury like a highly intelligent witch scorned," she muttered darkly, and pulled her bobble hat low over her forehead when Harry's head turned toward the cliff.

She was decked out in all the essentials: hat, dark hoodie and navy leggings, with a satchel slung over her lower back containing a pack of ibuprofen pills and a few of the Weasley twins' Distracting Explosion bombs (almond flavoured — her favourite). Really, it wasn't her best disguise, as under the blue sky and against the tan coloured rock, she stood out like a blackbird in a nesting of swans. (She had made a note to read Ron's espionage novels to rectify this problem…some day).

Safe again, she made another series of waves hit the pair. Harry managed to grip on and ride the brunt of the force, but Ron, poor Ron, lost his balance and got another face full. Hermione giggled as he resurfaced, looking annoyed.

"Harry!"

Hermione could only just hear the words – with a murmured spell, she magnified her hearing and focused it on the pair.

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" The redhead made a violent gesture that saw him sinking beneath the surface again.

"It's not my fault," Harry retorted, "Something's up with the waves, I've never seen them like this."

"I can't believe it!" Ron roared when he managed to expel the water in his lungs and take a breath, "You brought us out to jetski when there's a storm coming!"

"I did _not_, you stupid clothead," Harry shouted, "There's something weird going on here, I can-"

But what he could, Hermione didn't know, because she had made three waves come from three different locations, and the pair were engulfed in a roiling, bubbling mass of water. Without the 'help' of her spells, the water was soon back to a calm lapping that she heard far below her on the beach. The air smelled of brine, and she breathed it in deeply as she heard the seagulls scream their nostalgic songs above her.

Twin splashes as the famous Harry Potter and Ron Weasley duo emerged from the sea. She watched them spouting fountains of water like endangered whales.

"This is ridiculous," Ron whined, trying to clamber onto his jetski, but sliding off and clipping his hip on the side. Harry scrambled onto his and draped himself over the seat. They rested for a second before the dark-haired man admitted defeat.

"Grab the throttle," he instructed his friend, "After you're on the jetski!" It was added hastily after Ron tried to launch for the handlebars while still in the water. "Ease on it gently…gentl—"

This time, everything went under, jetskis included. The waves made an angry slurping noise around the rear ends of the motors as they sunk out of sight. Ron exploded from the water again. "I'VE HAD IT," he was bellowing in between indeterminable streams of bubbles, "HAD IT, YOU'D THINK THERE WAS A BLOODY TSUNAMI UPON US, I. AM. NEVER. GOING. JETSKIING. WITH _YOU_. AGAIN!"

Thoroughly red in the face, he was puffing and panting and just generally getting himself into a fluster. Harry, on the other hand, was looking contemplatively around while treading water to keep his head afloat like a buoy. When his jetski surfaced, like an aquatic animal, he half-hauled himself up and fished something out of a compartment under the seat. Something long and thin and brown.

"Expecto patronum!" he yelled.

Hermione involuntarily yelped as an explosion of bright light burst from the tip of his wand. The silver stag came to rest beside her, casting no shadow on the rock.

"Hermione," came the world-weary voice of Harry Potter, "Is this your doing?"

Busted.

She stood, pulling the bobble hat off her head and releasing her frizz. She palmed her own wand. It was warm, as it had been resting in the inside pocked of her coat. She barked the same spell, and her translucent beaver lazily floated down to the pair.

"You're messing with the wrong witch," she heard the beaver snap in a cold voice. "Next time you'll do well to know when to come to your best friend's life-changing lecture."

Down in the water, her magnified hearing heard Ron object and curse at her Patronus.

"And I got the position at the Ministry, thanks for being so concerned."

As if trying to appease her, there came a smattering of polite, water-logged applause from the two. Ron even let out a weak 'whoop', as if he knew that he'd pushed her too far this time.

Still seething, she barked out her final punishment. "And _Ron?"_

She watched him pale underneath his freckles.

"You are _rooming with Harry until I decide to let you back in!"_

As her boyfriend's eyes widened and he hastily tried to backtrack and made amends, she gave a grim smile. Let _that_ be a lesson to him, she thought as she Disapparated.


End file.
